Genres of World Cinema

Here's some of the popular genres of world cinema.. Let you relate with the movies that you have watched..

(Reference : Cinema Studies, by Susan Hayward)

1

Action Movies

Action movies are rather broad and all-encompassing films which offer the spectator an endless roller coaster of violence and action packed images. Generally, those cost a great deal of money to produce. Those films mainly focus on young generation audience (also acceptable for teens) but far apart from the taste of family audience.
The psychology behind these films is pure escapism. When watching these films we undergo with the sense of guilty pleasure we escape from everyday ordinaries and, moreover, to experience plentitude as a way of making up for the scarcity in our own lives.

Drama Films

Drama films are the films which that depend mostly on realistic characters dealing with themes signifying emotions. It deals with themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, , sexuality, poverty, etc.. Drama is one of the broadest movie genres and includes sub-genres such as romantic drama, sport films, period drama, courtroom drama and crime.

3

Historical Films

The historical films are the films which screen past stories and incidents. These films focus on the real event in the past, or the life of a real person. Often highly fictionalized, the historical film invests the moment or person’s greatness.

The historical films serve up the country’s national history before the eyes of indigenous people, and great men and women in our collective past.

4

Fantasy Movies

Fantasy Films are about the areas which we really know about and the areas we do not see real. However, fantasy is a expression of our unconscious, and it is these films in particular that most readily the areas we used to suppress. While watching these movies we may satisfy our inner temptation of living in a world of myths.
The films can be considered as the realms of our unconscious and the world of our dreams.
Example – The Fly (David Cornenberg,1986), Harry Potter Series,

5

Buddy Films

The buddy films are basically made for boys. That is, the narrative centers on the friendship between two male protagonists. This genre was very much in vogue in the 1960s and 1970s but later that conditions have transformed a bit.
These films are creating and advocating in the intention that boys will be boys. We can also see boys would around a woman or women and she guarantees the heroes’ heterosexuality, just in case.

War Movies

The world wars had played a significant role in the journey of cinema over centuries. We have movies which portrait the chapters of war. This genre has given the devastating effects of wars, especially world wars, on the populations of the nations involved.
Surprisingly less number of movies have made in this genre when comparing to other dominant genres. The western and eastern countries are in the same side of the coin in this case of detachment towards making war films.

7

Art Cinemas

Art movies, which typically produce low to mid-budget films, attempt to address the aesthetics of cinema and cinematic practices and primarily produced out of dominant mainstream cinema. These cinemas don’t even goal for commercial success but stand separately for a specific audience. Beyond of action, fantasy or gimmicks, these movies portrait the realistic facet of human temperaments.
Art cinemas have been rightly associated with eroticism since 1920s when sexual desire and nudity were explicitly put up on screen.
Example-Le Mepris (Jean Luc Godard-1963)

8

Science Fictions

These are the films which made-up with key concept as scientific wonders. Psychologically, science fiction is about the projection of man’s worst fears in relation to science and it hold for us. These films often exploit the man’s fear on his own death.
This genre always needs a good technological back-up and excellent production designs. Hollywood industry dominantly produce science fictions more than other industries.
Example – Metropolis (Fritz Lang-1926), A.I (Steven Speilberg-2001)

9

Gangster Films

The gangster films is the naked exhibition of male heroics, has been likened to an urban western. These movies have no respect to rules and laws, other than death. Central to the gangster film is the antagonism between the desire for success and social constraint.
In this genre, the gangster hero will choose to live a shorter life rather than submit to constraints. The gangster films are the one of the most readily identified as an American Genre.